Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

She said it again, and Tom glared at me over her shoulder. He was a dark, stocky fellow about my own age. He looked at me as if I’d been murdering her.

“Who’s this?” he growled.

“I d-don’t know,” said the girl.

“I want to get out into Ely Road,” said I.

Tom unhooked his young woman and put her behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Wasting my time,” I said.

“He came in through the w-window,” said the girl. “He f-flightened me d-dreadfully, and I c-couldn’t scream because of F-father.”

I thought I’d never heard anything so mean in my life.

“Did he hurt you?” said Tom.

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “Don’t be a fool! I want to get into Ely Road. And you want to elope-don’t you? She said you did. Hadn’t we better all get on with it, instead of doing our best to wake the house?”

That fetched her, and she said “Ssh!” again. And just as she said it, there was a loud thud overhead. It might have been a piece of furniture falling, or it might have been a heavy man getting out of bed in a hurry. I didn’t wait to see, nor did Tom. I had started for the door, and as I went through it, he shoved a suit-case at me and I clamped on to it.

The hall door was not bolted-I suppose the girl had seen to that. I got it open, and Tom and the girl and I all went tumbling down the steps. I don’t know which of us banged the door. It made an awful noise, and through the noise I could hear a military voice of the first magnitude roaring for “Maisie!”

Tom had a suit-case and I had a suit-case, and Tom had Maisie as well. She was simply dithering with fright, and we hadn’t gone half a dozen yards before she wonked and said she was going to faint. She was the sort of girl who’d have done it too.

“My car’s at the corner,” said Tom. “Maisie-darling!”

The door we had banged behind us had been violently wrenched open. I looked over my shoulder and saw a large man in purple and yellow pyjamas come hurtling down the steps. He had red hair and a red face, and a considerable command of language.

Tom and I each put an arm round Maisie’s waist and ran her along. He had left his engine running like a sensible fellow, so we didn’t have to waste time at the corner. He put Maisie on the front seat beside him, and the suit-cases and myself at the back. The car was a Morris saloon. I looked out through the back window and saw the red-haired man in the loud pyjamas getting small by degrees and beautifully less. I couldn’t imagine why he should be upset about losing Maisie. It was Tom I was sorry for, poor chap.

I don’t think he knew I was there until I poked him in the back. He was steering with one hand and cuddling that limp rabbit of a girl with the other. I suppose he looked at the road sometimes, but I didn’t see him do it, and the sort of baby language he kept talking to her was an eye-opener to me. I thought if he was going to smash up the car, I would rather get out, so I spoke to him.

He jumped about a foot into the air and just missed the last tram from Tooting, or somewhere like that. He ran on out of range of what the conductor had to say about it, and then pulled up.

“Oh, it’s you?” he said.

I said, “Yes. Thanks awfully for the lift,” and I opened the door and got out.

“One minute,” he said. “You-er-helped us get off- so I won’t ask you what you were doing in the house.”

I laughed.

“Just passing through,” I said. “Here to-day and gone to-morrow.”

“I’m not asking what you were doing-I only want to say that I’m taking Maisie-Miss Sharpe-I’m taking her straight to my grandmother. I’ve had a license ready for a fortnight, and we’re going to be married to-morrow.” He was a decent sort, so I didn’t laugh. I said, “All the best to you both-and thanks again for the lift.” Then I stood and watched his tail light dwindle to a red spark, whilst I made up my mind what I was going to do next.

I set out to walk to Putney. It took the best part of an hour, so I had plenty of time to think. I hadn’t any plan when I got out of Tom’s car, but one came to me as I stood and watched him drive away. The more I thought about it, the more I felt sure that I must go back to Olding Crescent and recover the package I had thrown over the wall. For all I knew, the thing might have my name on it somewhere, or some one might turn up who had seen it in Isobel’s possession. I simply couldn’t afford to leave it lying about.

Some one was taking a good deal of trouble to compromise me. There was the Queen Anne bow, and those beastly little packets of white powder… Whoever it was believed in having two strings to her bow. I said “her bow” to myself, because I hadn’t the slightest doubt that I was up against some of Anna’s work-Fay had as good as told me so. I couldn’t think why she should hate me enough to play that sort of game, and I couldn’t imagine how she had got in touch with Fay. She had met her at Corinna’s party; but you don’t go up to just any stray girl you’ve met once in a restaurant and say “Look here, come and join me in a criminal conspiracy,” or words to that effect. Of course Anna’s got a mind like a Surrey-side melodrama, but even she would draw the line at that.

Olding Crescent was darker than ever when I got back to it. The darkness was full of Isobel. I went to the place where we had stood together, and I could almost feel her in my arms again. It came over me that she was mine and I was hers, and there wasn’t anything in the world that was strong enough to keep us apart. I knew that just as certainly as I knew black from white, and light from darkness. There was nothing emotional about the feeling; it was comfortable, and steady, and immensely strong. It made everything quite easy.

The first thing that I had to do was to get over on to the other side of the wall. It was too high to climb. I tried the door, just as a chance, but it was locked. There was nothing for it but to go round by the drive. The difficulty would be to locate the right place. I had to remember just what I had done. I had gone over to the lamp to examine the package, and when I had decided that it wasn’t the sort of thing to carry around, I had walked across the road and chucked it over the wall.

I went back to the lamp, repeated my actions as nearly as I could, and threw over a white handkerchief. It had my name on it, so I tore the corner out first. Then I went down to the end of the crescent and in at the gate.

I struck off to the left at once, keeping along the wall. I had counted my own paces, so I thought I ought to be able to hit off the right place without much trouble. I was counting again as I groped my way along. I hadn’t much attention to spare, but what I had kept worrying round the open gate through which I had just come. It seemed so incongruous to have a ten-foot wall all round your garden, and a chevaux de frise on top of that, and then leave your gate open all night. It had been open the first time I came, but that wasn’t so late. It was well past midnight now.

The bit of my mind that was counting paces stopped, because it had reached the number which it had set out to reach. The other bit gave a sort of jump. The gate had been open before to let a car drive in and out. Perhaps it was open now for the same reason-perhaps for the same car.

I put that away to think about presently and started to look for my handkerchief. I realized at once that I wasn’t going to be able to find anything without a light. The trees grew just inside the wall, and there was a double line of them, and a bank of evergreens beyond that again. Even at midday it must have been dark; and now, on a cloudy midnight, the place was as black as the inside of a coal mine. I only knew that the trees and bushes were there because I kept on running into them.